Gothic Literature

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to take this chance for thanking my research facilitator, friends & family for support they provided & their belief in me as well as guidance they provided without which I would have never been able to do this research.



DECLARATION

I, (Your name), would like to declare that all contents included in this thesis/dissertation stand for my individual work without any aid, & this thesis/dissertation has not been submitted for any examination at academic as well as professional level previously. It is also representing my very own views & not essentially which are associated with university.

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Table of Contents



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTII

DECLARATIONIII

INTRODUCTION1

LITERATURE REVIEW2

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY7

DISCUSSION9

CONCLUSION14

REFERENCES16

INTRODUCTION

The notion that the Gothic is difficult to define as a literary genre has become as commonplace as to be corny. While Gothic texts seem to deliberately follow set conventions, to the point of being formulaic, scholars have continually focused on those texts which go beyond mere formula in an effort to legitimize the Gothic aesthetic. Providing a satisfactory explanation for the popular gothic's fixation on formula has always been one of the main challenges facing its critics. In this paradigm, the critic fails to question the perception that formula is a challenge to overcome and rather turns to those texts which seemingly negate formula, defining the genre through incoherence rather than cohesion. My dissertation questions the accuracy of these definitions by reconsidering part of the Gothic literature as an important and unifying aspect of the genre. In the present study, I seek to legitimize the Gothic aesthetically, by looking closer at what seems to be a superfluous convention, especially in the Gothic: the comic character and his or her humorous effect on the text. This dissertation is based on the three n novels, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, Dracula by Bram Stoker, and the Woman in Black by Susan Hill.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Manfred, the prince of Otranto, plans to marry his fifteen-year-old son Conrad to Isabella, the daughter of the marquis of Vicenza. Another spectator shouts that the helmet is missing from the statue. Prince Manfred imprisons the young peasant as a magician and charges him with the murder of the heir to Otranto. That evening, Manfred sends for Isabella. He informs her that he intends to divorce his wife so that he himself might marry her and have another male heir. Frightened, Isabella runs away and loses herself in the passages beneath the castle. There she encounters Theodore, who helps her to escape through an underground passage into a nearby church. Manfred, searching for the girl, accuses the young man of aiding her. As he is threatening Theodore, servants rush up to tell the prince of a giant who is sleeping in the great hall of the castle. When Manfred returns to the hall, the giant disappears (Heller, 1993).

The following morning, Father Jerome comes to inform Manfred and his wife that Isabella took sanctuary at the altar of his church. Sending his wife away, Manfred calls on the priest to help him ...